Mmabatho Portia Morudi is the Co-founder and Sustainability director at Local Village.

A former DreamGirls International mentor and a One Young World ambassador. Selected as one of the top 100 Brightest Young Minds and an Emerging Changemaker by Spark international.

She has dedicated the last ten years of her life educating remote rural communities in biodiversity conservation, apiculture and helping them derive a greater value from preserving nature as opposed to exploiting it and creating markets for their produce in order to improve their livelihoods.

Her passion for education and development in Africa, saw her founding a number of programmes including Thuo Nala mentoring programme for youth in rural commuities in recognition that now more than ever Africa needs young people proactively contributing to innovation, environmentally and economically sustainable agricultural development.

She is involved in projects adressing rural wildlife management such as (HEC) Human Elephant Conflict, reforestation in SA, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

The president of South Africa, the Hon. Mr Ramaphosa, in his 2019 Women’s day speech acknowledged her contribution to nation building. Mmabatho previously was also afforded an opportunity to address Top 100 business leaders in the UK on invitation by Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Unite.

She has received the following awards in recognition of her  contributions to rural development, poverty alleviation and nature conservation:

• BRICS Women Innovation Mulan award
• Seeds of Change award
• Social Entrepreneur of the year
• Inco SA,Woman Social entrepreneur of the year
• Roshgold Woman of impact award
• Heroic Women award